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DOE-SBR 6th Annual PI Meeting
April 26-28, 2011

The Department of Energy's Subsurface Biogeochemical Research (SBR) program held its 6th annual Principal Investigator (PI) meeting on April 26 – April 28, 2011, at the JW Marriott Hotel in Downtown Washington, DC.

Breakout Session A: Contaminant Fate and Transport at the Groundwater-Surface Water InterfaceModerators:Joel E. Kostka, Florida State University and Philippe Van Cappellen, University of WaterlooDescription of Session: The success of subsurface remediation or monitored natural attenuation strategies, as well as public perception and acceptance of those strategies, will not only depend on what happens in the subsurface but also on whether contaminants are discharged or released to surface waters. Due to the active and complex flow dynamics, the groundwater-surface water interface (GWSWI) exhibits unique geophysical and biogeochemical characteristics, including fluctuating hydraulic gradients, enhanced redox oscillations, and drying-rewetting cycles. The role of this unique and highly dynamic interface on the fate of subsurface contaminants at DOE sites must be further understood in order to develop adequate predictive models that guide remediation and natural attenuation efforts. The GWSWI modulates the release or discharge of nutrients and contaminants to surface waters. Critical hotspots or hot moments in contaminant transformation have been associated with the GWSWI. However, the underlying biogeochemical mechanisms and reaction networks unique to the interface have yet to be completely unraveled. The prediction of discharge and the assessment of risk for contaminant release from the watershed to regional scale are currently limited by our lack of mechanistic understanding of the biogeochemical functioning of the GWSWI. This breakout session will provide a state-of-the-science review of the coupled physical, chemical, and biological processes that control the structure and function of the GWSWI, with a focus on the hyporheic and riparian zones in DOE relevant systems. The goals of the session are to identify key processes that control contaminant transformation, to delineate knowledge gaps, and to highlight research directions that will lead to a more robust predictive understanding of contaminant flux and discharge at the GWSWI. Some of the specific questions that will be addressed during discipline-specific as well as general discussions are listed below.

Breakout Session B: Integrating Microbial Metabolism into Descriptions of Environmental Processes at a Variety of Observational ScalesModerator: Todd Anderson, Climate and Environmental Sciences DivisionDescription of Session:SBR's close association with the Genomic Sciences program, including some overlap of funded scientists and common field sites and materials, provides an opportunity to leverage advances in genome•enabled techniques to advance a more fundamental understanding of the metabolism of microorganisms and detection of the active members of microbial communities in the environment. Historically, research on cellular metabolism has tended to focus on organisms currently in culture, for obvious reasons. In a few cases, detailed metabolic modeling has enabled a translation of metabolic activity investigated in the laboratory to environments where the microorganism under study is found, thereby enabling understanding of that microorganism in its environment. This "bottom•up" approach to understanding microbial communities in the environment, one species at a time, shows some promise for predicting the activity of specific microorganisms in controlled environmental settings, but may be limited in describing the interactions occurring in natural microbial communities. Process•based models of microbial activity, a mainstay of environmental simulations, describe the collective activity of dominant microbial communities, but lack predictive power in explaining environmental impacts on microbial activity. Alternatively, a variety of metagenomic and proteomic techniques take a broader approach to describing the composition and genetic potential of entire microbial communities in the environment. These "top down" techniques have the potential to describe larger scale microbial ecological phenomena, but their broad utility remains constrained. For SBR, it is also unclear how these broader approaches could be integrated with physical/chemical models of environmental processes. This session will highlight approaches to understanding and modeling microbial processes in the environment at a variety of scales. The intent of the session is to engage the audience in a conversation about these approaches and how best to integrate genome•enabled information on microbial activity/ecology into coupled models of environmental processes. A potential outcome of this session would be a series of recommendations that advance a predictive understanding of microbial activity in the environment.

Breakout Session C: Pore Scale Processes •Matching Measurements to Models While UpscalingModerators: Peter Nico and Jonathon Ajo•Franklin, LBNLDescription of Session:It is taken as a given that precipitation and dissolution processes taking place at the pore scale as a result of remediation or natural perturbations of subsurface systems can have profound impacts on the larger scale behavior of the system. However, both understanding exactly how pore scale processes occur and linking those changes to specific large scale system behavior remains extremely challenging from both an experimental and computational perspective. In this session, we will explore new technological methods and intellectual approaches to image, quantify, and understand pore scale changes while simultaneously evaluating which changes control the evolution of macroscale systems. One of the specific challenges in this process is having both models at the appropriate scale and measurements at a matching scale to inform and validate the models.

Highlights

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